Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles [Paperback]

Ved Mehta (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 28, 1993

In this book, the renowned author Ved Mehta brings Gandhi to life in all his holiness and humanness, shedding light on his principles and his purposes, his ideas and his actions. Through interviewing disciples of Gandhi in five countries, Mehta reconstructs in precise detail Gandhi's daily routine, recounts the story of his life, and presents the beliefs and practices of his "apostles." Mehta's book, widely praised when it was first published in 1977, is a biographical portrait of Gandhi unlike any other. "A remarkable examination of the life and work of a human being who has been extolled around the world as one of the greatest souls of all time. . . . A very readable account, dotted with sharply etched portraits."-Paul Johnson, New York Times "Meticulously researched, passionately felt, elegantly written."-Max Lerner "Mehta's work . . . touches much more than the personality of Gandhi, for it deals with the more general issue of the evolution and maintenance of a cultural symbol. . . . Mehta has given us a sensitive view of India and a personalized experience of the meaning of Mahatma Gandhi."-Edward S. Kayes, American Historical Review "An outstanding book . . . aglow with illuminating detail."-John Grigg, The Listener

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (April 28, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300055390
• ISBN-13: 978-0300055399
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #798,225 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #46 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( G ) > Gandhi, Mahatma

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well-written but not always fair., November 6, 1997

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[e-mail] - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles (Paperback)

This is a relatively short book about one of the largest lives in human history. However, Mehta (a former staff writer for The New Yorker) proves himself a master of collage, giving the reader a multifaceted portrait of Gandhi and his legacy. All of the major events of Gandhi's life are recounted, including the sexual-spiritual crises that didn't make it into the movie. As the title indicates, this book is also about Gandhi's followers and his legacy, and Mehta seems to go out of his way to show how strange and unstable many of Gandhi's followers were. Mehta also spends a lot of time examining Gandhi's bramarchya experiments, where he tested his ability to resist temptation by sharing his bed with young girls. This is the most cited fact about Gandhi that people use to discredit him, and Mehta is no exception. He comes out without an understanding of Gandhi's peculiar (to us) behavior, and he has the journalist's typical approach of never voicing a judgment but merely arranging the facts in such a way to make his opinion clear. If you have not read anything about Gandhi, this may be a decent introduction to him (an implicit critique from a distance is generally better than a pious view from the bottom of a pedestal), but the best place to start is still the Mahatma's own autobiography.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GANDHI WITHOUT A PEDASTAL? By Kush Khatri, January 14, 1998

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[e-mail] (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles (Paperback)

In his foreword, Mr. Ved Mehta, makes it clear that his biography is an attempt to demytholigize the Mahatama. Does this make the author unfair? Of course not. The book perhaps will shock those who refuse to see M.K. Gandhi without a pedastal. Mr. Mehta's lucid writing skills keeps the reader's attention captured from start to finish.

This is a must read for those who want to read a lively "humanized" account of M.K. Gandhi's life and legacy. Certainly an eye opener for those awed by the larger-than-life, propogandist type accounts of M.K. Gandhi.

In the end, despite the self-acquired title of the Mahatama, Gandhi was very much a human being with his own quirks and obsessions. One of the obsessions being with sexual "purity" which Gandhi believed was not only possible but was a prerequisite for all who aspire to enter public life. The much talked about "experiments" in sexual purity, which involved Gandhi (in his seventies) taking young women (some of them married) to bed with him to test his carnality, form but a small portion of Ved Mehta's well substantiated account. I wish he had more details on the subject! But despite the bizzareness of Gandhi's religious experiments, it is quite clear from Mr. Mehta's account that Gandhi did not actually indulge in deviant sexual behaviour. Nevertheless, the women who had to be guineapigs in Gandhi's experiments, did find those experiences humiliating, at least in retrospect.

Despite exposing Gandhi's quirkiness and his obsession with irrational religiosity, Ved Mehta's biography actually manages to keep the Mahatama's pedastal intact. Mehta builds M.K. Gandhi by bringing to the fore his unwavering committment to non-violence, his innate sense of humor and his ability to adhere to his convictions under trying circumstances. Whether one agrees with Gandhi's priniciples or not, Mehta makes it clear, that at least the man had principles. Contrast this with today's politicians in India, and Gandhi indeed looks a Mahatama!

But wait a minute. Ved Mehta reveals (not by any means an original revelation) that Gandhi was patronized by three powerful Indian industrialist of that era: G.D. Birla, Bajaj and Mr. Sarabhai. All three were constantly writing checks and funding Gandhi's vow of poverty! Yet, Mehta goes over this without exploring necessary details. Details such as, exactly how much funds did Gandhi recieve from these powerful industrialists over a period of decades; what was the value of this behind the door funding in todays rupees; what impact did it have on Gandhi's thought process; are skipped altogether.

Ved Mehta does tackle another issue that I found very bothersome: Gandhi as a failed husband and a failed father. But once again, Ved Mehta, refrains from making judgments or go into details, which is fine, but why he does not raise these issues (of money and his refusal to take responsibility for his family) with his followers or apostles is disappointing. That is one of the reason why Mehta, at best, only partially succeeds in his attempt to demystify Gandhi. It appears that the writer, makes the unconfessed decision somewhere during the course of his writing to leave the mystique of Gandhi unfazed. Or maybe, Mr. Mehta is a realist who understands that fleabites cannot stop a moving elephant, let alone bring him down!

Whatever the case might be, Mahatama Gandhi and His Apostles is one of the most readable biographies of Gandhi around. This book should be a part of all those interested not only in Gandhi but his legacy (a subject which is not much tackled) and in understanding the religious-cultural history of India both during and after Gandhi.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An unique Gandhi biography, November 24, 2007

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Anand Velayudhan "Anand Velayudhan" (USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles (Paperback)

Ved Mehta's this unique book on Gandhi is a must read for all those whom Gandhi is still an object of interest or target of criticism. For novice readers of Gandhi, this book gives them a window of opportunity for either deface their popular image of Gandhi or open up an all new interest for further reading and research. For a seasoned Gandhi reader, this book instead serves as a rare source of information on opinions and reflections of people who had lived and worked with Gandhi. Ved did an excellent job in going after Gandhi's contemporaries, most of whom were in their late years, gathering their recollections of Gandhi and presenting them in a very coherent manner, creating a unique biography of Gandhi in the process. It comes as little surprise to the readers of Gandhi that none of the people Ved met were talking about politics or Gandhi's contribution in the India's freedom struggle; rather they center their conversation on Gandhi's extraordinary character and near supernatural abilities, a response consistent with Gandhi's popular image as a saint than as an astute politician.

One of the very intriguing aspects of Gandhi's life is the kind of relations that he had kept with his women disciples. Based on the popular saying that behind every successful man there is a woman, it is natural for one to develop a curiosity in women of Gandhi's life. Believe me, you won't be disappointed; but unlike other great people, Gandhi's involvement with women rest in a different plain that is, for most, a difficult proposition to comprehend. A number of western and Indian women became Gandhi's disciples at different points in time and became center of controversies. One woman who scholars most seriously studied and most famous among Gandhi's disciples was Madeline Slade (also known as Mirabehn, a name Gandhi had given to her). Two of other women of Gandhi's associates who also became scholars' subjects of interest were Manu and Abha, with whom Gandhi had a `close' relationship.

One of the reasons for my interest in Ved's book was to look for the details of Mirabehn's recollections of Gandhi to see whether Richard Grenier's viciously worded interpretation of Mira's conversation with Ved about Gandhi in his book, The Gandhi Nobody Knows has any truth in it. Yet, one gets a different picture in Ved's book about their conversation that is quite different from Richard's interpretation who, one would tend to believe, distorted them in his tirade against Gandhi for falsely portray that she repented her association with Gandhi. The following are the excerpts from Ved's discussion with Mirabehn on Gandhi.

...I try to draw her out on the subject of Gandhi, but her answers are vague. She speaks of him in the most general and abstract terms as a great hero of history, comparing him to Socrates, Christ and Beethoven..."How is it that you were so readily able to substitute Gandhi for Beethoven and Beethoven for Gandhi?" I ask. "Surely what distinguishes the hero from the rest of us in his extraordinary individuality?" Mira replied, `They were much more alike than anyone supposes. My book on Beethoven will show that. They both believed in God. They both had great spiritual power. And don't think that van Beethoven wasn't political'...

One need not be very smart to see how pious Mira's image of Gandhi was. Richard's interpretation now can only be think of as biased and a product of an illogical mind. At least that is how I felt. Mira continued, `In a matter of spirit, there is always a call. Please don't ask me anymore about Gandhi, I am with Beethoven now'. One can only think of this comment as Mira's devotion to Beethoven and that she doesn't want to be distracted with questions on Gandhi. Mira's hagiographical book on Gandhi, Spirits Pilgrimage published around the time this interview was done, clearly showing her devotion and submission to Gandhi and his principles; if it wasn't for her devotion to Gandhi, she wouldn't had to spent time and effort in compiling such a revered recollections of her times with Gandhi. Readers who are interested to know how a relation expert might look at their relation, could read, a renowned psychoanalyst, Sudhir Kakkar's semi-fictional book Mira and the Mahatma.

Ved also interviewed Abha; one of Gandhi's `walking sticks' and participant of his Brahmacharical (celibacy) experiments. Abha could not fully comprehend those experiments; neither had she felt any bad intentions on Gandhi's part. Most controversial girl in Gandhi's experiment was Manu, who died at a younger age. Manu had written a book on Gandhi,Bapu - my mother in which she compared her affection towards Gandhi with the affection she would have had with her own mother. Whatever the case, none of the women Ved interviewed had any bad opinion on Gandhi's experiments. What Ved has not attempted in his book, an analysis of Gandhi's these experiments with women, is attempted by an eminent professor Nicholas F. Gier in a recent academic work, `Was Gandhi a Tantric?' by comparing Gandhi's near tantric powers with that of other eastern ascetics. Ved seems to agree on Gandhi's yogic powers from his discussions with a few of Gandhi's associates who had many encounters and subsequent discussions with Gandhi on his experiments. Based on all these and other accounts, it is safe to assume that Gandhi had had supernatural powers and that he derived these powers at least partially through his `platonic' association with his women disciples. I would recommend Elizabeth Abbot's A History of Celibacy to get a more in-depth understanding of celibacy in different cultures and `vow of celibacy' historical figures including Gandhi had kept during their life times.

When Gandhi was alive, the people associated with him had a purpose in life and they were all single focused, but when he was gone, they found themselves devoid of Gandhi's influence and reduced to simple human beings. Mirabehn though continued in India for another ten years working on different rural and husbandry projects, could not stand a chance with the bureaucracy and red tapes of the new India and left India for Vienna to continue her search of Beethoven. Nehru, an aristocrat, became the head of India with complete disregard to Gandhian principles and even waged a war with China for a small piece of land. When asked about Gandhi's future in India, Rajajgopalachari (a close relative and political associate of Gandhi) told to Ved, "I have to give you a depressing answer, much as I don't like to. The glamour of modern technology, money, and power is so seductive that no one - I mean no one - can resist it. And it may be that because of Gandhi we got our freedom before we are ready, before we had developed our character to match the responsibility. The handful of Gandhians who still believe in his philosophy of a simple life in a simple society are mostly cranks." This sums up pretty much how badly the revolution that Gandhi had started died out in India. Unlike other great movements in history such as The Great Russian revolution, Mao's revolution in China, Communist revolution in Vietnam, Fidel Castro's Cuban revolution, Gandhi's revolution perished almost instantly with his death. S.S Gill in his book, Gandhi: A Sublime Failure, examines a number of `failures' from Gandhi's life and does a comparative study of what would have happened if Gandhi had done things differently.

Something somewhere went seriously wrong in India's freedom movement which was started with a noble method of execution under Gandhi's direction. Gandhi's vision of a free India was very special and for which he was willing to wait any longer. While Gandhi was working with British for a brighter future for India, religious and communal rifts created by the religious fanatics undermined Gandhi's vision. There it all started, the vision started to disintegrate into chaos and mayhem. Gandhi's gargantuan efforts to work with Muslims and untouchables all the while working with British for the betterment of India failed miserably. If anyone says that Gandhi did not hasten India's freedom even by a single day but at the same time delayed it by at least 20 years, my argument is, what kind of freedom are they talking about that Gandhi had delayed giving them for so long? Indians got their freedom before they being worthy of it. In my opinion Indians are never freed, British may have left India, but the millions of poor people of India are not liberated, and without their redemption, the freedom India gained is not worth a dime.

While reading reviews of many other Gandhi books, I got a feeling that how flawed is some of the readers' understanding of Gandhi. This book, I wish help them balance their opinions instead of forming a strong one-sided, uneducated opinion on Gandhi. Gandhi's life is not so easy to understand from a few books. One who seriously research Gandhi can see himself moving from one subject to other, from Hinduism to British Raj to Islam, and so on. Without getting a good grip on these topics, a proper understanding of Gandhi, a multifaceted personality, would be difficult if not impossible. It is interesting however to note that academic interest on Gandhi continue unabated with many studies, seminars, publications, debates, and research being conducted all over the world on Gandhi's life and his messages. To name a few, Kathryn Tidrick's Gandhi: A Political and Spiritual Life and Rajmohan Gandhi's... Read more ›